Samuel Francis: A Reflection and a Reconsideration

Pedro Gonzalez introduced me to Samuel Francis, and from there I read his fantastic book Beautiful Losers.

Francis predicted what I have been witnessing for the last eight years, and what President Donald Trump busted up: “Conservatism” has been corrupted into a libertarian lightweight controlled opposition, abandoning the fundamentals of our nation’s identity, integrity, and idiosyncrasy.

Samuel Francis predicated the rise of “Middle American Radicals” and the populist, America-First pushback against managerial elites and globalist implications. Ron Paul fretted as far back as 2007 about the rising soft fascism in this country, in which conformity would be the rule, and non-government organizations would impose speech codes and other repressive measures against those who did not conform to the will and wishes of the elite. But Francis called out the corporate dominance long before that.

Francis’ most salient observations arise from his essay Beautiful Losers in the same-named book that he published in 1993. He called out the frequent failure of the Conservative movement to win the culture war. He pointed out how Conservatives had incorporated the Gestalt of Liberalism, in which individual liberty is the only salient feature, while culture and constitutional concerns were brushed aside. Francis correctly exposed the “neoconservatives” as the neo-liberals that they really were. Sure, they did not like the rising crime rates and plummeting test sores in the inner cities. Yet they still held onto the multicultural, affirmative-action dogma which created those problems in the first place.

To his incredible credit, Francis called out the tacit alliance of liberals and conservatives to focus on fighting communism and promote individual liberty, which in turn turned into a betrayal of true constitutionalism, Judeo-Christian conservatism, and America-First nationalism.

William F. Buckley articulated conservatism thus:

“A conservative is someone who stands athwart history, yelling ‘Stop!’, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it.”

Samuel Francis pointed out who the Left and other liberal interests had conveniently found ways to get around the Conservative Crank shouting “Stop!”, all while praising Mr. Stop Sign’s political convictions. Even though conservatives opposed abortion, homosexual marriage, gun control, economic restrictionism, socialism, and Marxist groupthink in the colleges, all the major institutions in our culture, community, and country have given into these forces.

Yes, conservatives need to yell “Stop!” but they also have to actually stop the nefarious elements causing harm when they don’t stop. And Francis called them out on it.

Hence, the mess we find ourselves in today, a mess which President Trump, with his Francis-Buchanan populist instincts began taking the first steps to clean up.

Samuel Francis’ thinking is making a comeback and for good reason.

He also needs to make a comeback to remind us why he disappeared, and why it made sense at the time that he went away.

Samuel Francis predicted the populist backlash to the managerial elites ruining our country.

He was absolutely correct to call out America’s growing investment and involvement in foreign wars. He was critical of the First War in Iraq, and his criticism would have aptly applied to George W. Bush’s second invasion of Iraq in 2003, which he lived to see, but not end.

He was also right to question the cult-like adherence that had cropped up around Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement as a political hegemony. Civil rights has really turned into “civic privilege” handed out by government entities, and in too man cases undermines true natural rights.

But Samuel Francis would later write:

“What we as whites must do is reassert our identity and our solidarity, and we must do so in explicitly racial terms through the articulation of a racial consciousness as whites.”

I find this statement patently offensive. More importantly, though, it’s abject falsehood.

What is a “white racial consciousness”? Such a thing does not exist. Did the guy not study the Civil War? The United States was 90% white in 1861, and the country descended into a fractious, fearsome civil war, one which cost more American lives than all other American military involvements combined! White nationalists, or white racialists will argue: “That’s what happens when you have people of a different race in your country! It causes nothing but trouble!” However, most of these armchair (or should I say “Booster-Seat”) historians forget that blacks were voting citizens in some of the colonies and the states. They supported the ratification of the United States Constitution, as well.

Getting rid of all the black, Hispanic, and Asian people is not going to solve any problems. Human nature and its propensity to faction is deeply-rooted enough, that no matter how homogenous one makes a community, there can be still emerge bases for strife and conflict. The problem is not other people and their skin color.

I cannot offer a systematic explanation, but I will hazard one educated guess as to why there are these conflicting advocacies among nationalists and populists: the focus on Tradition as the catch-all answer to everything, rather than looking for truth to synthesize all the data before them on the historical record.

Human thought tends to aggregate a set of propositions under one label, then wants to answer all the other policy, personnel, and fundamental questions under the same label. If you see yourself as a nationalist and a populist, then you have to support welfare for American citizens only, for example. Yet government subsidy of any kind harms the very people it claims to help (read Charles Murray’s On Losing Ground for more information).

Some nationalist-populist types are pushing for minimum wage increases, government-run healthcare (Medicaid expansions or even single-payer programs) because they want the government to “serve the people.” However, making the people dependent on the government only serves … the government, or the people who are running the government. The lack of thinking on these matters is really disturbing!

This same kind of sloppy thinking induces nationalists and populists to look at old traditions, the “Southern Way of Life” and decide: “Why can’t we go back to the way things used to be? Why can’t we go back to being a majority white country?”

 

Francis seemed to think that going back to a time when the nation was “majority white” would be better for the country, since there were fewer problems. He confuses skin color for culture, and he misplaces physical identity for the common cohesion needed to hold a country together. This kind of thinking is sloppy, mistaken, and just plain wrong.

Sam Francis was right about the abandonment of the real culture war, and he deftly explained why the Right is getting it wrong. But the answer is not “White Power” or “White Nationalism.” We need to focus on and restore the United States of America’s fundamental, credal heritage: our Anglo-Saxon legal tradition, the Judeo-Christian heritage, and our unique Constitutional Republicanism. These American verities are not “white values,” and an American Renaissance is not an invitation to go backwards, but rather to move forwards and restore that the credal promises of America can incorporate anyone who is willing to submit and accept them.